tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71159375724290326192018-03-06T09:10:55.258-08:00Good Public SpeakingClassic advice from Dale Carnegie and other sources that is still very relevant today. Articles on how to create emphasis, use dramatic pause, employ good diction, choose vibrant words, and more. All material is from 1915 or earlier, and is in the public domain.Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15924201086701834480noreply@blogger.comBlogger38125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115937572429032619.post-51562804951111015182013-12-29T07:25:00.002-08:002013-12-29T07:25:50.064-08:00Testing The Validity of Your Speech's Argument <i>Editor's Note: here is a very clear and specific outline for testing the correctness, soundness, and resliience of the argument you are making in your speech. Checking your idea against any of these conditions is bound to improve your skill in arguing and persuading!</i><br /><br />I. <span class="smcap">The Question Under Discussion</span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 1em;">1. <i>Is it clearly stated?</i></span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>a</i>) Do the terms of statement mean the same to each</span> disputant? (For example, the meaning of the term "gentleman" may not be mutually agreed upon.)<br /><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" id="Page_282" name="Page_282"></a><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>b</i>) Is confusion likely to arise as to its purpose?</span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 1em;">2. <i>Is it fairly stated?</i></span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>a</i>) Does it include enough?</span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>b</i>) Does it include too much?</span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>c</i>) Is it stated so as to contain a trap?</span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 1em;">3. <i>Is it a debatable question?</i></span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 1em;">4. <i>What is the pivotal point in the whole question?</i></span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 1em;">5. <i>What are the subordinate points?</i></span><br /><br />II. <span class="smcap">The Evidence</span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 1em;">1. <i>The witnesses as to facts</i></span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>a</i>) Is each witness impartial? What is his relation to the</span> subject at issue?<br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>b</i>) Is he mentally competent?</span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>c</i>) Is he morally credible?</span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>d</i>) Is he in a position to know the facts? Is he an</span><br />eye-witness?<br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>e</i>) Is he a willing witness?</span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>f</i>) Is his testimony contradicted?</span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>g</i>) Is his testimony corroborated?</span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>h</i>) Is his testimony contrary to well-known facts or general</span> principles?<br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>i</i>) Is it probable?</span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 1em;">2. <i>The authorities cited as evidence</i></span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>a</i>) Is the authority well-recognized as such?</span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>b</i>) What constitutes him an authority?</span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>c</i>) Is his interest in the case an impartial one?</span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>d</i>) Does he state his opinion positively and clearly?</span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>e</i>) Are the non-personal authorities cited (books, etc.) </span>reliable and unprejudiced?<br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 1em;">3. <i>The facts adduced as evidence</i></span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>a</i>) Are they sufficient in number to constitute proof?</span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>b</i>) Are they weighty enough in character?</span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>c</i>) Are they in harmony with reason?</span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>d</i>) Are they mutually harmonious or contradictory?</span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>e</i>) Are they admitted, doubted, or disputed?</span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 1em;">4. <i>The principles adduced as evidence</i></span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>a</i>) Are they axiomatic?</span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>b</i>) Are they truths of general experience?</span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>c</i>) Are they truths of special experience?</span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>d</i>) Are they truths arrived at by experiment?</span><br /><span style="margin-left: 3em;">Were such experiments special or general?</span><br /><span style="margin-left: 3em;">Were the experiments authoritative and conclusive?</span><br /><br />III. <span class="smcap">The Reasoning</span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 1em;">1. <i>Inductions</i></span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>a</i>) Are the facts numerous enough to warrant accepting the</span> generalization as being conclusive?<br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>b</i>) Do the facts agree <i>only</i> when considered in the</span> light of this explanation as a conclusion?<br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>c</i>) Have you overlooked any contradictory facts?</span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>d</i>) Are the contradictory facts sufficiently explained when</span> this inference is accepted as true?<br /><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" id="Page_284" name="Page_284"></a><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>e</i>) Are all contrary positions shown to be relatively</span> untenable?<br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>f</i>) Have you accepted mere opinions as facts?</span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 1em;">2. <i>Deductions</i></span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>a</i>) Is the law or general principle a well-established one?</span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>b</i>) Does the law or principle clearly include the fact you</span> wish to deduce from it, or have you strained the inference?<br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>c</i>) Does the importance of the law or principle warrant so</span> important an inference?<br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>d</i>) Can the deduction be shown to prove too much?</span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 1em;">3. <i>Parallel cases</i></span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>a</i>) Are the cases parallel at enough points to warrant an</span> inference of similar cause or effect?<br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>b</i>) Are the cases parallel at the vital point at issue?</span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>c</i>) Has the parallelism been strained?</span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>d</i>) Are there no other parallels that would point to a</span><br />stronger contrary conclusion?<br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 1em;">4. <i>Inferences</i></span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>a</i>) Are the antecedent conditions such as would make the</span> allegation probable? (Character and opportunities of the accused, for example.)<br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>b</i>) Are the signs that point to the inference either clear</span> or numerous enough to warrant its acceptance as fact?<br /><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" id="Page_285" name="Page_285"></a><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>c</i>) Are the signs cumulative, and agreeable one with the other?</span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>d</i>) Could the signs be made to point to a contrary conclusion?</span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 1em;">5. <i>Syllogisms</i></span><br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>a</i>) Have any steps been omitted in the syllogisms?</span> (Such as in a syllogism <i>in enthymeme</i>.) If so, test any such by filling out the syllogisms.<br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>b</i>) Have you been guilty of stating a conclusion that really</span> does not follow? (A <i>non sequitur</i>.)<br /><br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">(<i>c</i>) Can your syllogism be reduced to an absurdity?</span> (<i>Reductio ad absurdum.</i>)<br />Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15924201086701834480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115937572429032619.post-81792023319074897032013-12-28T16:41:00.006-08:002013-12-28T16:41:52.639-08:00Being Confident When Making a Speech<span class="u"></span><i>To secure confidence, be confident.</i> How can you expect others to accept a message in which you lack, or seem to lack, faith yourself? Confidence is as contagious as disease. Napoleon rebuked an officer for using the word "impossible" in his presence. The speaker who will entertain no idea of defeat begets in his hearers the idea of his victory. Lady Macbeth was so confident of success that Macbeth changed his mind about undertaking the assassination. Columbus was so certain in his mission that Queen Isabella pawned her jewels to finance his expedition. Assert your message with implicit assurance, and your own belief will act as so much gunpowder to drive it home.<br /> <br />Advertisers have long utilized this principle. "The machine you will eventually buy," "Ask the man who owns one," "Has the strength of Gibraltar," are publicity slogans so full of confidence that they give birth to confidence in the mind of the reader.<br /><br /> It should—but may not!—go without saying that confidence must have a solid ground of merit or there will be a ridiculous crash. It is all very well for the "spellbinder" to claim all the precincts—the official count is just ahead. The reaction against over-confidence and over-suggestion ought to warn those whose chief asset is mere bluff.<br /> <br />A short time ago a speaker arose in a public-speaking club and asserted that grass would spring from wood-ashes sprinkled over the soil, without the aid of seed. This idea was greeted with a laugh, but the speaker was so sure of his position that he reiterated the statement forcefully several times and cited his own personal experi<a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" id="Page_271" name="Page_271"></a>ence as proof. One of the most intelligent men in the audience, who at first had derided the idea, at length came to believe in it. When asked the reason for his sudden change of attitude, he replied: "Because the speaker is so confident." In fact, he was so confident that it took a letter from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to dislodge his error.<br /> <br />If by a speaker's confidence, intelligent men can be made to believe such preposterous theories as this where will the power of self-reliance cease when plausible propositions are under consideration, advanced with all the power of convincing speech?Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15924201086701834480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115937572429032619.post-80333782564070488422013-11-27T08:50:00.001-08:002013-11-27T08:50:22.977-08:00Influencing By Suggestion<span class="u"></span>Three fundamental conditions make us all susceptive to suggestion:<br /> <br /><i>We naturally respect authority.</i> In every mind this is only a question of degree, ranging from the subject who is easily hypnotized to the stubborn mind that forti<a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" id="Page_264" name="Page_264"></a>fies itself the more strongly with every assault upon its opinion. The latter type is almost immune to suggestion.<br /> <br />One of the singular things about suggestion is that it is rarely a fixed quantity. The mind that is receptive to the authority of a certain person may prove inflexible to another; moods and environments that produce hypnosis readily in one instance may be entirely inoperative in another; and some minds can scarcely ever be thus moved. We do know, however, that the feeling of the subject that authority—influence, power, domination, control, whatever you wish to call it—lies in the person of the suggester, is the basis of all suggestion.<br /> The extreme force of this influence is demonstrated in hypnotism. The hypnotic subject is told that he is in the water; he accepts the statement as true and makes swimming motions. He is told that a band is marching down the street, playing "The Star Spangled Banner;" he declares he hears the music, arises and stands with head bared.<br /> <br />In the same way some speakers are able to achieve a modified hypnotic effect upon their audiences. The hearers will applaud measures and ideas which, after individual reflection, they will repudiate unless such reflection brings the conviction that the first impression is correct.<br /> <br />A second important principle is that <i>our feelings, thoughts and wills tend to follow the line of least resistance</i>. Once open the mind to the sway of one feeling and it requires a greater power of feeling, thought, or will—or even all three—to unseat it. Our feelings influence <a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" id="Page_265" name="Page_265"></a>our judgments and volitions much more than we care to admit.<br /><br />So true is this that it is a superhuman task to get an audience to reason fairly on a subject on which it feels deeply, and when this result is accomplished the success becomes noteworthy, as in the case of Henry Ward Beecher's Liverpool speech. Emotional ideas once accepted are soon cherished, and finally become our very inmost selves. Attitudes based on feelings alone are prejudices.<br /> <br />What is true of our feelings, in this respect, applies to our ideas: All thoughts that enter the mind tend to be accepted as truth unless a stronger and contradictory thought arises.<br /> The speaker skilled in moving men to action manages to dominate the minds of his audience with his thoughts by subtly prohibiting the entertaining of ideas hostile to his own. Most of us are captured by the latest strong attack, and if we can be induced to act while under the stress of that last insistent thought, we lose sight of counter influences. The fact is that almost all our decisions—if they involve thought at all—are of this sort: At the moment of decision the course of action then under contemplation usurps the attention, and conflicting ideas are dropped out of consideration.<br /> <br />The head of a large publishing house remarked only recently that ninety per cent of the people who bought books by subscription never read them. They buy because the salesman presents his wares so skillfully that every consideration but the attractiveness of the book drops out of the mind, and that thought prompts action.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" id="Page_266" name="Page_266"></a> <i>Every</i> idea that enters the mind will result in action unless a contradictory thought arises to prohibit it. Think of singing the musical scale and it will result in your singing it unless the counter-thought of its futility or absurdity inhibits your action. If you bandage and "doctor" a horse's foot, he will go lame. You cannot think of swallowing, without the muscles used in that process being affected. You cannot think of saying "hello," without a slight movement of the muscles of speech. To warn children that they should not put beans up their noses is the surest method of getting them to do it. Every thought called up in the mind of your audience will work either for or against you. Thoughts are not dead matter; they radiate dynamic energy—the thoughts all tend to pass into action. "Thought is another name for fate." Dominate your hearers' thoughts, allay all contradictory ideas, and you will sway them as you wish.<br /> <br />Volitions as well as feelings and thoughts tend to follow the line of least resistance. That is what makes habit. Suggest to a man that it is impossible to change his mind and in most cases it becomes more difficult to do so—the exception is the man who naturally jumps to the contrary. Counter suggestion is the only way to reach him. Suggest subtly and persistently that the opinions of those in the audience who are opposed to your views are changing, and it requires an effort of the will—in fact, a summoning of the forces of feeling, thought and will—to stem the tide of change that has subconsciously set in.<br /> <br />But, not only are we moved by authority, and tend toward channels of least resistance: <i>We are all influenced by <a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" id="Page_267" name="Page_267"></a>our environments</i>. It is difficult to rise above the sway of a crowd—its enthusiasms and its fears are contagious because they are suggestive. What so many feel, we say to ourselves, must have some basis in truth. Ten times ten makes more than one hundred. Set ten men to speaking to ten audiences of ten men each, and compare the aggregate power of those ten speakers with that of one man addressing one hundred men. The ten speakers may be more logically convincing than the single orator, but the chances are strongly in favor of the one man's reaching a greater total effect, for the hundred men will radiate conviction and resolution as ten small groups could not. We all know the truism about the enthusiasm of numbers. (See the chapter on "Influencing the Crowd.")<br /> <br />Environment controls us unless the contrary is strongly suggested. A gloomy day, in a drab room, sparsely tenanted by listeners, invites platform disaster. Everyone feels it in the air. But let the speaker walk squarely up to the issue and suggest by all his feeling, manner and words that this is going to be a great gathering in every vital sense, and see how the suggestive power of environment recedes before the advance of a more potent suggestion—if such the speaker is able to make it.<br /> <br />Now these three factors—respect for authority, tendency to follow lines of least resistance, and susceptibility to environment—all help to bring the auditor into a state of mind favorable to suggestive influences, but they also react on the speaker, and now we must consider those personally causative, or subjective, forces which enable him to use suggestion effectively.Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15924201086701834480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115937572429032619.post-6125794598066151542013-08-10T07:47:00.001-07:002013-08-10T07:57:25.715-07:00Methods of Using Description in Public SpeakingIn public speaking, <i>description should be mainly by suggestion</i>, not only because suggestive description is so much more compact and time-saving but because it is so vivid. Suggestive expressions connote more than they literally say—they suggest ideas and pictures to the mind of the hearer which supplement the direct words of the speaker. When Dickens, in his "Christmas Carol," says: "In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile," our minds complete the picture so deftly begun—a much more effective process than that of a minutely detailed description because it leaves a unified, vivid impression, and that is what we need. Here is a present-day bit of suggestion: "General Trinkle was a gnarly oak of a man—rough, solid, and safe; you always knew where to find him." Dickens presents Miss Peecher as: "A little pin-cushion, a little housewife, a little book, a little work-box, <a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" id="Page_235" name="Page_235"></a>a little set of tables and weights and measures, and a little woman all in one." In his "Knickerbocker's" "History of New York," Irving portrays Wouter van Twiller as "a robustious beer-barrel, standing on skids."<br /><br />Whatever forms of description you neglect, be sure to master the art of suggestion.<br /><br /><i>Description may be by simple hint.</i> Lowell notes a happy instance of this sort of picturing by intimation when he says of Chaucer: "Sometimes he describes amply by the merest hint, as where the Friar, before setting himself down, drives away the cat. We know without need of more words that he has chosen the snuggest corner."<br /><br /><i>Description may depict a thing by its effects.</i> "When the spectator's eye is dazzled, and he shades it," says Mozley in his "Essays," "we form the idea of a splendid object; when his face turns pale, of a horrible one; from his quick wonder and admiration we form the idea of great beauty; from his silent awe, of great majesty."<br /><br /><i>Brief description may be by epithet.</i> "Blue-eyed," "white-armed," "laughter-loving," are now conventional compounds, but they were fresh enough when Homer first conjoined them. The centuries have not yet improved upon "Wheels round, brazen, eight-spoked," or "Shields smooth, beautiful, brazen, well-hammered." Observe the effective use of epithet in Will Levington Comfort's "The Fighting Death," when he speaks of soldiers in a Philippine skirmish as being "leeched against a rock."<br /><br /><i>Description uses figures of speech.</i> Any advanced rhetoric will discuss their forms and give examples for <a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" id="Page_236" name="Page_236"></a>guidance.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" id="FNanchor_21_22" name="FNanchor_21_22"></a> This matter is most important, be assured. A brilliant yet carefully restrained figurative style, a style marked by brief, pungent, witty, and humorous comparisons and characterizations, is a wonderful resource for all kinds of platform work.<br /><br /><i>Description may be direct.</i> This statement is plain enough without exposition. Use your own judgment as to whether in picturing you had better proceed from a general view to the details, or first give the details and thus build up the general picture, but by all means BE BRIEF.<br /><br />Note the vivid compactness of these delineations from Washington Irving's "Knickerbocker:"<br /><div class="blockquot"><br /><i>He was a short, square, brawny old gentleman, with a double chin, a mastiff mouth, and a broad copper nose, which was supposed in those days to have acquired its fiery hue from the constant neighborhood of his tobacco pipe.</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>He was exactly five feet six inches in height, and six feet five inches in circumference. His head was a perfect sphere, and of such stupendous dimensions, that Dame Nature, with all her sex's ingenuity, would have been puzzled to construct a neck capable of supporting it; wherefore she wisely declined the attempt, and settled it firmly on the top of his backbone, just between the shoulders. His body was of an oblong form, particularly capacious at bottom; which was wisely ordered by Providence, seeing that he was a man of sedentary habits, and very averse to the idle labor of walking.</i></div><br />The foregoing is too long for the platform, but it is so good-humored, so full of delightful exaggeration, that it<a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" id="Page_237" name="Page_237"></a> may well serve as a model of humorous character picturing, for here one inevitably sees the inner man in the outer.<br /><br />Direct description for platform use may be made vivid by the <i>sparing</i>use of the "historical present." The following dramatic passage, accompanied by the most lively action, has lingered in the mind for thirty years after hearing Dr. T. De Witt Talmage lecture on "Big Blunders." The crack of the bat sounds clear even today:<br /><div class="blockquot"><br /><i>Get ready the bats and take your positions. Now, give us the ball. Too low. Don't strike. Too high. Don't strike. There it comes like lightning. Strike! Away it soars! Higher! Higher! Run! Another base! Faster! Faster! Good! All around at one stroke!</i></div><br />Observe the remarkable way in which the lecturer fused speaker, audience, spectators, and players into one excited, ecstatic whole—just as you have found yourself starting forward in your seat at the delivery of the ball with "three on and two down" in the ninth inning. Notice, too, how—perhaps unconsciously—Talmage painted the scene in Homer's characteristic style: not as having already happened, but as happening before your eyes.<br /><br />If you have attended many travel talks you must have been impressed by the painful extremes to which the lecturers go—with a few notable exceptions, their language is either over-ornate or crude. If you would learn the power of words to make scenery, yes, even houses, palpitate with poetry and human appeal, read Lafcadio Hearn, Robert Louis Stevenson, Pierre Loti, and Edmondo De Amicis.<br /><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" id="Page_238" name="Page_238"></a><br /><div class="blockquot"><i>Blue-distant, a mountain of carven stone appeared before them,—the Temple, lifting to heaven its wilderness of chiseled pinnacles, flinging to the sky the golden spray of its decoration.</i><br /><div class="author">—<span class="smcap">Lafcadio Hearn</span>, <i>Chinese Ghosts</i>.<br /></div><i>The stars were clear, colored, and jewel-like, but not frosty. A faint silvery vapour stood for the Milky Way. All around me the black fir-points stood upright and stock-still. By the whiteness of the pack-saddle I could see Modestine walking round and round at the length of her tether; I could hear her steadily munching at the sward; but there was not another sound save the indescribable quiet talk of the runnel over the stones.</i><br /><div class="author">—<span class="smcap">Robert Louis Stevenson</span>, <i>Travels with a Donkey</i>.</div><br /><i>It was full autumn now, late autumn—with the nightfalls gloomy, and all things growing dark early in the old cottage, and all the Breton land looking sombre, too. The very days seemed but twilight; immeasurable clouds, slowly passing, would suddenly bring darkness at broad noon. The wind moaned constantly—it was like the sound of a great cathedral organ at a distance, but playing profane airs, or despairing dirges; at other times it would come close to the door, and lift up a howl like wild beasts.</i><br /><i>&nbsp;</i>—<span class="smcap">Pierre Loti</span>, <i>An Iceland Fisherman</i>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" id="FNanchor_23_24" name="FNanchor_23_24"></a></div>Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15924201086701834480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115937572429032619.post-52642832747670077032013-07-04T16:06:00.000-07:002013-07-04T16:06:05.384-07:00Using Description in your Public Speaking<span class="u"></span>To describe is to call up a picture in the mind of the hearer. "In talking of description we naturally speak of portraying, delineating, coloring, and all the devices of the picture painter. To describe is to visualize, hence we <a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" id="Page_232" name="Page_232"></a>must look at description as a pictorial process, whether the writer deals with material or with spiritual objects."<br /> <br /><br />If you were asked to describe the rapid-fire gun you might go about it in either of two ways: give a cold technical account of its mechanism, in whole and in detail, or else describe it as a terrible engine of slaughter, dwelling upon its effects rather than upon its structure.<br /> <br />The former of these processes is exposition, the latter is true description. Exposition deals more with the <i>general</i>, while description must deal with the <i>particular</i>. Exposition elucidates <i>ideas</i>, description treats of <i>things</i>. Exposition deals with the <i>abstract</i>, description with the <i>concrete</i>. Exposition is concerned with the <i>internal</i>, description with the <i>external</i>. Exposition is <i>enumerative</i>, description <i>literary</i>. Exposition is <i>intellectual</i>, description <i>sensory</i>. Exposition is <i>impersonal</i>, description <i>personal</i>.<br /> If description is a visualizing process for the hearer, it is first of all such for the speaker—he cannot describe what he has never seen, either physically or in fancy. It is this personal quality—this question of the personal eye which sees the things later to be described—that makes description so interesting in public speech. Given a speaker of personality, and we are interested in his personal view—his view adds to the natural interest of the scene, and may even be the sole source of that interest to his auditors.<br /> <br />The seeing eye has been praised in an earlier chapter (on "Subject and Preparation") and the imagination will be treated in a subsequent one (on "Riding the Winged<a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" id="Page_233" name="Page_233"></a> Horse"), but here we must consider the <i>picturing mind</i>: the mind that forms the double habit of seeing things clearly—for we see more with the mind than we do with the physical eye—and then of re-imaging these things for the purpose of getting them before the minds' eyes of the hearers. No habit is more useful than that of visualizing clearly the object, the scene, the situation, the action, the person, about to be described. Unless that primary process is carried out clearly, the picture will be blurred for the hearer-beholder.<br /> In a work of this nature we are concerned with the rhetorical analysis of description, and with its methods, only so far as may be needed for the practical purposes of the speaker.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" id="FNanchor_20_21" name="FNanchor_20_21"></a> The following grouping, therefore, will not be regarded as complete, nor will it here be necessary to add more than a word of explanation:<br /><br /> <div class="center"><i>Description for Public Speakers</i></div><div class="center"><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" summary=""><tbody><tr><td align="left">Objects</td><td align="left">&nbsp;</td><td align="left">{ Still</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Objects</td><td align="left">&nbsp;</td><td align="left">{ In motion</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Scenes</td><td align="left">&nbsp;</td><td align="left">{ Still</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Scenes</td><td align="left">&nbsp;</td><td align="left">{ Including action</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Situations</td><td align="left">&nbsp;</td><td align="left">{ Preceding change</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Situations</td><td align="left">&nbsp;</td><td align="left">{ During change</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Situations</td><td align="left">&nbsp;</td><td align="left">{ After change</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Actions</td><td align="left">&nbsp;</td><td align="left">{ Mental</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Actions</td><td align="left">&nbsp;</td><td align="left">{Physical</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Persons</td><td align="left">&nbsp;</td><td align="left">{ Internal</td></tr><tr><td align="left">Persons</td><td align="left">&nbsp;</td><td align="left">{ External</td></tr></tbody></table></div><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" id="Page_234" name="Page_234"></a><br /> Some of the foregoing processes will overlap, in certain instances, and all are more likely to be found in combination than singly.<br /><br /> When description is intended solely to give accurate information—as to delineate the appearance, not the technical construction, of the latest Zeppelin airship—it is called "scientific description," and is akin to exposition. When it is intended to present a free picture for the purpose of making a vivid impression, it is called "artistic description." With both of these the public speaker has to deal, but more frequently with the latter form. Rhetoricians make still further distinctions.Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15924201086701834480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115937572429032619.post-24725575951767756902013-06-13T08:06:00.003-07:002013-06-13T08:08:15.804-07:00Some Methods of ExpositionThe various ways along which a speaker may proceed in exposition are likely to touch each other now and then, <a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" id="Page_222" name="Page_222"></a>and even when they do not meet and actually overlap they run so nearly parallel that the roads are sometimes distinct rather in theory than in any more practical respect.<br /><br /><b>Definition</b>, the primary expository method, is a statement of precise limits.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" id="FNanchor_15_15" name="FNanchor_15_15"></a> Obviously, here the greatest care must be exercised that the terms of definition should not themselves demand too much definition; that the language should be concise and clear; and that the definition should neither exclude nor include too much. The following is a simple example:<br /><div class="blockquot"><br />To expound is to set forth the nature, the significance, the characteristics, and the bearing of an idea or a group of ideas.<br /><div class="author">—<span class="smcap">Arlo Bates</span>, <i>Talks on Writing English</i>.</div></div><br /><b>Contrast and Antithesis</b> are often used effectively to amplify definition, as in this sentence, which immediately follows the above-cited definition:<br /><div class="blockquot"><br />Exposition therefore differs from Description in that it deals directly with the meaning or intent of its subject instead of with its appearance.</div><br />This antithesis forms an expansion of the definition, and as such it might have been still further extended. In fact, this is a frequent practise in public speech, where the minds of the hearers often ask for reiteration and expanded statement to help them grasp a subject in its several aspects. This is the very heart of exposition—to amplify and clarify all the terms by which a matter is defined.<br /><br /><b>Example</b> is another method of amplifying a definition or of expounding an idea more fully. The following sentences immediately succeed Mr. Bates's definition and contrast just quoted:<br /><div class="blockquot"><br />A good deal which we are accustomed inexactly to call description is really exposition. Suppose that your small boy wishes to know how an engine works, and should say: "Please describe the steam-engine to me." If you insist on taking his words literally—and are willing to run the risk of his indignation at being wilfully misunderstood—you will to the best of your ability picture to him this familiarly wonderful machine. If you explain it to him, you are not describing but expounding it.</div><br />The chief value of example is that it makes clear the unknown by referring the mind to the known. Readiness of mind to make illuminating, apt comparisons for the sake of clearness is one of the speaker's chief resources on the platform—it is the greatest of all teaching gifts. It is a gift, moreover, that responds to cultivation. Read the three extracts from Arlo Bates as their author delivered them, as one passage, and see how they melt into one, each part supplementing the other most helpfully.<br /><br />Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15924201086701834480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115937572429032619.post-26406677690372910662012-10-16T08:17:00.000-07:002013-06-13T08:07:03.626-07:00The Importance of Exposition<span class="u"></span>The importance of exposition in public speech is precisely the importance of setting forth a matter so plainly that it cannot be misunderstood.<br /><div class="blockquot"><br />"To master the process of exposition is to become a clear thinker. 'I know, when you do not ask me,'<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7115937572429032619" id="FNanchor_13_13" name="FNanchor_13_13"></a> replied a gentleman upon being requested to define a highly complex idea. Now some large concepts defy explicit definition; but no mind should take refuge behind such exceptions, for where definition fails, other forms succeed. Sometimes we feel confident that we have perfect mastery of an idea, but when the time comes to express it, the clearness becomes a haze. Exposition, then, is the test of clear understanding. To speak effectively you must be able to see your subject clearly and comprehensively, and to make your audience see it as you do."<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7115937572429032619" id="FNanchor_14_14" name="FNanchor_14_14"></a></div><br />There are pitfalls on both sides of this path. To explain too little will leave your audience in doubt as to what you mean. It is useless to argue a question if it is not perfectly clear just what is meant by the question. Have you never come to a blind lane in conversation by finding that you were talking of one aspect of a matter while your friend was thinking of another? If two do not agree in their definitions of a Musician, it is useless to dispute over a certain man's right to claim the title.<br /><br />On the other side of the path lies the abyss of tediously explaining too much. That offends because it impresses the hearers that you either do not respect their intelligence<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7115937572429032619" id="Page_221" name="Page_221"></a> or are trying to blow a breeze into a tornado. Carefully estimate the probable knowledge of your audience, both in general and of the particular point you are explaining. In trying to simplify, it is fatal to "sillify." To explain more than is needed for the purposes of your argument or appeal is to waste energy all around. In your efforts to be explicit do not press exposition to the extent of dulness—the confines are not far distant and you may arrive before you know it.Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15924201086701834480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115937572429032619.post-87582621754147108752012-10-14T06:29:00.003-07:002013-06-13T08:07:36.563-07:00The Nature of Exposition<span class="u"></span>In the word "expose"—<i>to lay bare, to uncover, to show the true inwardness of</i>—we see the foundation-idea of "Exposition." It is the clear and precise setting forth of what the subject really is—it is explanation.<br /><br />Exposition does not draw a picture, for that would be description. To tell in exact terms what the automobile is, to name its characteristic parts and explain their workings, would be exposition; so would an explanation of the nature of "fear." But to create a mental image of a particular automobile, with its glistening body, grace<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7115937572429032619" id="Page_219" name="Page_219"></a>ful lines, and great speed, would be description; and so would a picturing of fear acting on the emotions of a child at night. Exposition and description often intermingle and overlap, but fundamentally they are distinct. Their differences will be touched upon again in the chapter on "Description."<br /><br />Exposition furthermore does not include an account of how events happened—that is narration. When Peary lectured on his polar discoveries he explained the instruments used for determining latitude and longitude—that was exposition. In picturing his equipment he used description. In telling of his adventures day by day he employed narration. In supporting some of his contentions he used argument. Yet he mingled all these forms throughout the lecture.<br /><br />Neither does exposition deal with reasons and inferences—that is the field of argument. A series of connected statements intended to convince a prospective buyer that one automobile is better than another, or proofs that the appeal to fear is a wrong method of discipline, would not be exposition. The plain facts as set forth in expository speaking or writing are nearly always the basis of argument, yet the processes are not one. True, the statement of a single significant fact without the addition of one other word may be convincing, but a moment's thought will show that the inference, which completes a chain of reasoning, is made in the mind of the hearer and presupposes other facts held in consideration.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7115937572429032619" id="FNanchor_12_12" name="FNanchor_12_12"></a><br /><br />In like manner, it is obvious that the field of persuasion<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7115937572429032619" id="Page_220" name="Page_220"></a> is not open to exposition, for exposition is entirely an intellectual process, with no emotional element.Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15924201086701834480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115937572429032619.post-47640259548886282482012-10-12T08:02:00.000-07:002012-10-12T08:02:21.303-07:00Using a Library for Researching Your Public SpeechUnsuspected treasures lie in the smallest library. Even when the owner has read every last page of his books it is only in rare instances that he has full indexes to all of them, either in his mind or on paper, so as to make available the vast number of varied subjects touched upon or treated in volumes whose titles would never suggest such topics.<br /><br />For this reason it is a good thing to take an odd hour now and then to browse. Take down one volume after another and look over its table of contents and its index. (It is a reproach to any author of a serious book not to have provided a full index, with cross references.) Then glance over the pages, making notes, mental or physical, of material that looks interesting and usable. Most libraries contain volumes that the owner is "going to read some day." A familiarity with even the contents of such books on your own shelves will enable you to refer to them when you want help. Writings read long ago should be treated in the same way—in every chapter some surprise lurks to delight you.<br /><br />In looking up a subject do not be discouraged if you do not find it indexed or outlined in the table of contents—you are pretty sure to discover some material under a related title.<br /><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7115937572429032619" id="Page_208" name="Page_208"></a><br /><br />Suppose you set to work somewhat in this way to gather references on "Thinking:" First you look over your book titles, and there is Schaeffer's "Thinking and Learning to Think." Near it is Kramer's "Talks to Students on the Art of Study"—that seems likely to provide some material, and it does. Naturally you think next of your book on psychology, and there is help there. If you have a volume on the human intellect you will have already turned to it. Suddenly you remember your encyclopedia and your dictionary of quotations—and now material fairly rains upon you; the problem is what <i>not</i> to use. In the encyclopedia you turn to every reference that includes or touches or even suggests "thinking;" and in the dictionary of quotations you do the same. The latter volume you find peculiarly helpful because it suggests several volumes to you that are on your own shelves—you never would have thought to look in them for references on this subject. Even fiction will supply help, but especially books of essays and biography. Be aware of your own resources.<br /><br />To make a general index to your library does away with the necessity for indexing individual volumes that are not already indexed.<br /><br />To begin with, keep a note-book by you; or small cards and paper cuttings in your pocket and on your desk will serve as well. The same note-book that records the impressions of your own experiences and thoughts will be enriched by the ideas of others.<br /><br />To be sure, this note-book habit means labor, but remember that more speeches have been spoiled by half-<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7115937572429032619" id="Page_209" name="Page_209"></a>hearted preparation than by lack of talent. Laziness is an own-brother to Over-confidence, and both are your inveterate enemies, though they pretend to be soothing friends.<br /><br />Conserve your material by indexing every good idea on cards, thus:<br /><br /><div class="center"><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Index carding"><tbody><tr><td align="left"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Courier New&quot;,Courier,monospace;"><i>Socialism</i></span></span></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Courier New&quot;,Courier,monospace;">Progress of S., Env. 16</span></span></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Courier New&quot;,Courier,monospace;">S. a fallacy, 96/210</span></span></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Courier New&quot;,Courier,monospace;">General article on S., Howells', Dec. 1913</span></span></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Courier New&quot;,Courier,monospace;">"Socialism and the Franchise," Forbes</span></span></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Courier New&quot;,Courier,monospace;">"Socialism in Ancient Life," Original Ms.,</span></span></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Courier New&quot;,Courier,monospace;">Env. 102</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table></div><br />On the card illustrated above, clippings are indexed by giving the number of the envelope in which they are filed. The envelopes may be of any size desired and kept in any convenient receptacle. On the foregoing example, "Progress of S., Envelope 16," will represent a clipping, filed in Envelope 16, which is, of course, numbered arbitrarily.<br /><br />The fractions refer to books in your library—the numerator being the book-number, the denominator referring to the page. Thus, "S. a fallacy, 96/210," refers to page 210 of volume 96 in your library. By some arbitrary sign—say red ink—you may even index a reference in a public library book.<br /><br />If you preserve your magazines, important articles may be indexed by month and year. An entire volume on a <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7115937572429032619" id="Page_210" name="Page_210"></a>subject may be indicated like the imaginary book by "Forbes." If you clip the articles, it is better to index them according to the envelope system.<br /><br />Your own writings and notes may be filed in envelopes with the clippings or in a separate series.<br /><br />Another good indexing system combines the library index with the "scrap," or clipping, system by making the outside of the envelope serve the same purpose as the card for the indexing of books, magazines, clippings and manuscripts, the latter two classes of material being enclosed in the envelopes that index them, and all filed alphabetically.<br /><br />When your cards accumulate so as to make ready reference difficult under a single alphabet, you may subdivide each letter by subordinate guide cards marked by the vowels, A, E, I, O, U. Thus, "Antiquities" would be filed under <i>i</i> in A, because A begins the word, and the second letter, <i>n</i>, comes after the vowel <i>i</i> in the alphabet, but before <i>o</i>. In the same manner, "Beecher" would be filed under <i>e</i> in B; and "Hydrogen" would come under <i>u</i> in H.Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15924201086701834480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115937572429032619.post-73150296364888211812012-10-08T05:10:00.004-07:002012-10-08T05:10:46.091-07:00Using Original Sources When SpeakingThe surest way to give life to speech-material is to gather your facts at first hand. Your words come with the weight of authority when you can say, "I have examined the employment rolls of every mill in this district and find that thirty-two per cent of the children employed are under the legal age." No citation of authorities can equal that. You must adopt the methods of the reporter and find out the facts underlying your argument or appeal.<br /><br />To do so may prove laborious, but it should not be irksome, for the great world of fact teems with interest, and over and above all is the sense of power that will come to you from original investigation. To see and feel the facts you are discussing will react upon you much more powerfully than if you were to secure the facts at second hand.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7115937572429032619" id="Page_207" name="Page_207"></a><br />Live an active life among people who are doing worth-while things, keep eyes and ears and mind and heart open to absorb truth, and then tell of the things you know, as if you know them. The world will listen, for the world loves nothing so much as real life.Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15924201086701834480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115937572429032619.post-91065699895363648512012-09-13T06:44:00.000-07:002012-10-14T06:32:46.509-07:00Proportion and Emphasis in your SpeechProportion in a speech is attained by a nice adjustment of time. How fully you may treat your subject it is not always for you to say. Let ten minutes mean neither nine nor eleven—though better nine than eleven, at all events. You wouldn't steal a man's watch; no more should you steal the time of the succeeding speaker, or that of the audience. There is no need to overstep time-limits if you make your preparation adequate and divide your subject so as to give each thought its due proportion of attention—and no more. Blessed is the man that maketh short speeches, for he shall be invited to speak again.<br /><br />Another matter of prime importance is, what part of <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7115937572429032619" id="Page_206" name="Page_206"></a>your address demands the most emphasis. This once decided, you will know where to place that pivotal section so as to give it the greatest strategic value, and what degree of preparation must be given to that central thought so that the vital part may not be submerged by non-essentials. Many a speaker has awakened to find that he has burnt up eight minutes of a ten-minute speech in merely getting up steam. That is like spending eighty percent of your building-money on the vestibule of the house.<br /><br />The same sense of proportion must tell you to stop precisely when you are through—and it is to be hoped that you will discover the arrival of that period before your audience does.Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15924201086701834480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115937572429032619.post-91609849160560378902012-06-14T08:00:00.002-07:002012-06-14T08:02:49.482-07:00Deciding on the Subject MatterEven when your theme has been chosen for you by someone else, there remains to you a considerable field for choice of subject matter. The same considerations, in fact, that would govern you in choosing a theme must guide in the selection of the material.<br /> <br />Ask yourself—or someone else—such questions as these: <ul><li>What is the precise nature of the occasion?</li><li>How large an audience may be expected? </li><li>From what walks of life do they come? </li><li>What is their probable attitude toward the theme? </li><li>Who else will speak? </li><li>Do I speak first, last, or where, on the program? </li><li>What are the other speakers going to talk about? </li><li>What is the nature of the auditorium? </li><li>Is there a desk? </li><li>Could the subject be more effectively handled if somewhat modified? </li><li>Precisely how much time am I to fill?</li></ul><br />It is evident that many speech-misfits of subject, speaker, occasion and place are due to failure to ask just such pertinent questions. What should be said, by whom, and in what circumstances, constitute ninety per cent of efficiency in public address. No matter who asks you, refuse to be a square peg in a round hole.Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15924201086701834480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115937572429032619.post-85756095562005506732010-06-08T08:26:00.001-07:002010-06-08T08:37:24.362-07:00Choosing a Good SubjectSubject and materials tremendously influence each other. Dale Carnegie provides the following material from "How to Attract and Hold an Audience", by J. Berg Esenwein:<br /><br /><blockquote>This arises from the fact that there are two distinct ways in which a subject may be chosen: by arbitrary choice, or by development from thought and reading.<br /><br />Arbitrary choice ... of one subject from among a number involves so many important considerations that no speaker ever fails to appreciate the tone of satisfaction in him who triumphantly announces: 'I have a subject!'<br /><br />'Do give me a subject!' How often the weary school teacher hears that cry. Then a list of themes is suggested, gone over, considered, and, in most instances, rejected, because the teacher can know but imperfectly what is in the pupil's mind. To suggest a subject in this way is like trying to discover the street on which a lost child lives, by naming over a number of streets until one strikes the little one's ear as sounding familiar.<br /><br />Choice by development is a very different process. It does not ask, What shall I say? It turns the mind in upon itself and asks, What do I think? Thus, the subject may be said to choose itself, for in the process of thought or of reading one theme rises into prominence and becomes a living germ, soon to grow into the discourse. He who has not learned to reflect is not really acquainted with his own thoughts; hence, his thoughts are not productive. Habits of reading and reflection will supply the speaker's mind with an abundance of subjects of which he already knows something from the very reading and reflection which gave birth to his theme. This is not a paradox, but sober truth.<br /><br />It must be already apparent that the choice of a subject by development savors more of collection than of conscious selection. The subject 'pops into the mind.' ... In the intellect of the trained thinker it concentrates—by a process which we have seen to be induction—the facts and truths of which he has been reading and thinking. This is most often a gradual process. The scattered ideas may be but vaguely connected at first, but more and more they concentrate and take on a single form until at length one strong idea seems to grasp the soul with irresistible force, and to cry aloud, 'Arise, I am your theme! Henceforth, until you transmute me by the alchemy of your inward fire into vital speech, you shall know no rest!' Happy, then, is that speaker, for he has found a subject that grips him.<br /><br />Of course, experienced speakers use both methods of selection. Even a reading and reflective man is sometimes compelled to hunt for a theme from Dan to Beersheba, and then the task of gathering materials becomes a serious one. But even in such a case there is a sense in which the selection comes by development, because no careful speaker settles upon a theme which does not represent at least some matured thought.</blockquote>Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15924201086701834480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115937572429032619.post-2253091394080328942010-02-22T15:53:00.000-08:002010-02-22T15:54:06.881-08:00Extemporaneous SpeechSurely this is the ideal method of delivery. It is far and away the most popular with the audience, and the favorite method of the most efficient speakers.<br /><br />"Extemporaneous speech" has sometimes been made to mean unprepared speech, and indeed it is too often precisely that; but in no such sense do we recommend it strongly to speakers old and young. On the contrary, to speak well without notes requires all the preparation which we discussed so fully in the chapter on "Fluency," while yet relying upon the "inspiration of the hour" for some of your thoughts and much of your language. You had better remember, however, that the most effective inspiration of the hour is the inspiration you yourself bring to it, bottled up in your spirit and ready to infuse itself into the audience.<br /><br />If you extemporize you can get much closer to your audience. In a sense, they appreciate the task you have before you and send out their sympathy. Extemporize, and you will not have to stop and fumble around amidst your notes—you can keep your eye afire with your message and hold your audience with your very glance. You yourself will feel their response as you read the effects of your warm, spontaneous words, written on their countenances.<br /><br />Sentences written out in the study are liable to be dead and cold when resurrected before the audience. When you create as you speak you conserve all the native fire of your thought. You can enlarge on one point or omit another, just as the occasion or the mood of the audience may demand. It is not possible for every speaker to use this, the most difficult of all methods of delivery, and least of all can it be used successfully without much practise, but it is the ideal towards which all should strive.<br /><br />One danger in this method is that you may be led aside from your subject into by-paths. To avoid this peril, firmly stick to your mental outline. Practise speaking from a memorized brief until you gain control. Join a debating society—talk, talk, TALK, and always extemporize. You may "make a fool of yourself" once or twice, but is that too great a price to pay for success?<br /><br />Notes, like crutches, are only a sign of weakness. Remember that the power of your speech depends to some extent upon the view your audience holds of you. General Grant's words as president were more powerful than his words as a Missouri farmer. If you would appear in the light of an authority, be one. Make notes on your brain instead of on paper.<br /><br />Joint Methods of Delivery<br /><br />A modification of the second method has been adopted by many great speakers, particularly lecturers who are compelled to speak on a wide variety of subjects day after day; such speakers often commit their addresses to memory but keep their manuscripts in flexible book form before them, turning several pages at a time. They feel safer for having a sheet-anchor to windward—but it is an anchor, nevertheless, and hinders rapid, free sailing, though it drag never so lightly.<br /><br />Other speakers throw out a still lighter anchor by keeping before them a rather full outline of their written and committed speech.<br /><br />Others again write and commit a few important parts of the address—the introduction, the conclusion, some vital argument, some pat illustration—and depend on the hour for the language of the rest. This method is well adapted to speaking either with or without notes.<br /><br />Some speakers read from manuscript the most important parts of their speeches and utter the rest extemporaneously.Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15924201086701834480noreply@blogger.com29tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115937572429032619.post-38856165728302590522010-02-19T06:20:00.001-08:002010-02-19T06:21:01.057-08:00Speaking from NotesThe third, and the most popular method of delivery, is probably also the best one for the beginner. Speaking from notes is not ideal delivery, but we learn to swim in shallow water before going out beyond the ropes.<br /><br />Make a definite plan for your discourse (for a fuller discussion see Chapter XVIII) and set down the points somewhat in the fashion of a lawyer's brief, or a preacher's outline. Here is a sample of very simple notes:<br /><br />ATTENTION<br /><br />I. Introduction.<br /><br />Attention indispensable to the performance of any great work. Anecdote.<br /><br />II. Defined And Illustrated.<br /><br />1. From common observation.<br /><br />2. From the lives of great men {Carlyle, Robert E. Lee.}<br /><br />III. Its Relation To Other Mental Powers.<br /><br />1. Reason.<br /><br />2. Imagination.<br /><br />3. Memory.<br /><br />4. Will. Anecdote.<br /><br />IV. Attention May Be Cultivated.<br /><br />1. Involuntary attention.<br /><br />2. Voluntary attention. Examples.<br /><br />V. Conclusion.<br /><br />The consequences of inattention and of attention.<br /><br />Few briefs would be so precise as this one, for with experience a speaker learns to use little tricks to attract his eye—he may underscore a catch-word heavily, draw a red circle around a pivotal idea, enclose the key-word of an anecdote in a wavy-lined box, and so on indefinitely. These points are worth remembering, for nothing so eludes the swift-glancing eye of the speaker as the sameness of typewriting, or even a regular pen-script. So unintentional a thing as a blot on the page may help you to remember a big "point" in your brief—perhaps by association of ideas.<br /><br />An inexperienced speaker would probably require fuller notes than the specimen given. Yet that way lies danger, for the complete manuscript is but a short remove from the copious outline. Use as few notes as possible.<br /><br />They may be necessary for the time being, but do not fail to look upon them as a necessary evil; and even when you lay them before you, refer to them only when compelled to do so. Make your notes as full as you please in preparation, but by all means condense them for platform use.Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15924201086701834480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115937572429032619.post-38590420243837607692010-02-17T08:59:00.000-08:002010-02-17T09:00:08.601-08:00Committing the Written Speech and Speaking from MemoryThis method has certain points in its favor. If you have time and leisure, it is possible to polish and rewrite your ideas until they are expressed in clear, concise terms. Pope sometimes spent a whole day in perfecting one couplet. Gibbon consumed twenty years gathering material for and rewriting the "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." Although you cannot devote such painstaking preparation to a speech, you should take time to eliminate useless words, crowd whole paragraphs into a sentence and choose proper illustrations. Good speeches, like plays, are not written; they are rewritten. The National Cash Register Company follows this plan with their most efficient selling organization: they require their salesmen to memorize verbatim a selling talk. They maintain that there is one best way of putting their selling arguments, and they insist that each salesman use this ideal way rather than employ any haphazard phrases that may come into his mind at the moment.<br /><br />The method of writing and committing has been adopted by many noted speakers; Julius Cæsar, Robert Ingersoll, and, on some occasions, Wendell Phillips, were distinguished examples. The wonderful effects achieved by famous actors were, of course, accomplished through the delivery of memorized lines.<br /><br />The inexperienced speaker must be warned before attempting this method of delivery that it is difficult and trying. It requires much skill to make it efficient. The memorized lines of the young speaker will usually sound like memorized words, and repel.<br /><br />If you want to hear an example, listen to a department store demonstrator repeat her memorized lingo about the newest furniture polish or breakfast food. It requires training to make a memorized speech sound fresh and spontaneous, and, unless you have a fine native memory, in each instance the finished product necessitates much labor. Should you forget a part of your speech or miss a few words, you are liable to be so confused that, like Mark Twain's guide in Rome, you will be compelled to repeat your lines from the beginning.<br /><br />On the other hand, you may be so taken up with trying to recall your written words that you will not abandon yourself to the spirit of your address, and so fail to deliver it with that spontaneity which is so vital to forceful delivery.<br /><br />But do not let these difficulties frighten you. If committing seems best to you, give it a faithful trial. Do not be deterred by its pitfalls, but by resolute practise avoid them.<br /><br />One of the best ways to rise superior to these difficulties is to do as Dr. Wallace Radcliffe often does: commit without writing the speech, making practically all the preparation mentally, without putting pen to paper—a laborious but effective way of cultivating both mind and memory.<br /><br />You will find it excellent practise, both for memory and delivery, to commit the specimen speeches found in this volume and declaim them, with all attention to the principles we have put before you. William Ellery Channing, himself a distinguished speaker, years ago had this to say of practise in declamation:<br /><br />"Is there not an amusement, having an affinity with the drama, which might be usefully introduced among us? I mean, Recitation. A work of genius, recited by a man of fine taste, enthusiasm, and powers of elocution, is a very pure and high gratification. Were this art cultivated and encouraged, great numbers, now insensible to the most beautiful compositions, might be waked up to their excellence and power."Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15924201086701834480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115937572429032619.post-18921981214085609342010-02-16T19:00:00.000-08:002010-02-16T19:07:36.268-08:00Reading from a ManuscriptThis method really deserves short shrift in a book on public speaking, for, delude yourself as you may, public reading is not public speaking. Yet there are so many who grasp this broken reed for support that we must here discuss the "read speech"—apologetic misnomer as it is.<br /><br />Certainly there are occasions—among them, the opening of Congress, the presentation of a sore question before a deliberative body, or a historical commemoration—when it may seem not alone to the "orator" but to all those interested that the chief thing is to express certain thoughts in precise language—in language that must not be either misunderstood or misquoted. At such times oratory is unhappily elbowed to a back bench, the manuscript is solemnly withdrawn from the capacious inner pocket of the new frock coat, and everyone settles himself resignedly, with only a feeble flicker of hope that the so-called speech may not be as long as it is thick. The words may be golden, but the hearers' (?) eyes are prone to be leaden, and in about one instance out of a hundred does the perpetrator really deliver an impressive address. His excuse is his apology—he is not to be blamed, as a rule, for some one decreed that it would be dangerous to cut loose from manuscript moorings and take his audience with him on a really delightful sail.<br /><br />One great trouble on such "great occasions" is that the essayist—for such he is—has been chosen not because of his speaking ability but because his grandfather fought in a certain battle, or his constituents sent him to Congress, or his gifts in some line of endeavor other than speaking have distinguished him.<br /><br />As well choose a surgeon from his ability to play golf. To be sure, it always interests an audience to see a great man; because of his eminence they are likely to listen to his words with respect, perhaps with interest, even when droned from a manuscript. But how much more effective such a deliverance would be if the papers were cast aside!<br /><br />Nowhere is the read-address so common as in the pulpit—the pulpit, that in these days least of all can afford to invite a handicap. Doubtless many clergymen prefer finish to fervor—let them choose: they are rarely men who sway the masses to acceptance of their message. What they gain in precision and elegance of language they lose in force.<br /><br />There are just four motives that can move a man to read his address or sermon:<br /><br />1. Laziness is the commonest. Enough said. Even Heaven cannot make a lazy man efficient.<br /><br />2. A memory so defective that he really cannot speak without reading. Alas, he is not speaking when he is reading, so his dilemma is painful—and not to himself alone. But no man has a right to assume that his memory is utterly bad until he has buckled down to memory culture—and failed. A weak memory is oftener an excuse than a reason.<br /><br />3. A genuine lack of time to do more than write the speech. There are such instances—but they do not occur every week! The disposition of your time allows more flexibility than you realize. Motive 3 too often harnesses up with Motive 1.<br /><br />4. A conviction that the speech is too important to risk forsaking the manuscript. But, if it is vital that every word should be so precise, the style so polished, and the thoughts so logical, that the preacher must write the sermon entire, is not the message important enough to warrant extra effort in perfecting its delivery? It is an insult to a congregation and disrespectful to Almighty God to put the phrasing of a message above the message itself. To reach the hearts of the hearers the sermon must be delivered—it is only half delivered when the speaker cannot utter it with original fire and force, when he merely repeats words that were conceived hours or weeks before and hence are like champagne that has lost its fizz. The reading preacher's eyes are tied down to his manuscript; he cannot give the audience the benefit of his expression. How long would a play fill a theater if the actors held their cue-books in hand and read their parts? Imagine Patrick Henry reading his famous speech; Peter-the-Hermit, manuscript in hand, exhorting the crusaders; Napoleon, constantly looking at his papers, addressing the army at the Pyramids; or Jesus reading the Sermon on the Mount! These speakers were so full of their subjects, their general preparation had been so richly adequate, that there was no necessity for a manuscript, either to refer to or to serve as "an outward and visible sign" of their preparedness. No event was ever so dignified that it required an artificial attempt at speech making. Call an essay by its right name, but never call it a speech. Perhaps the most dignified of events is a supplication to the Creator. If you ever listened to the reading of an original prayer you must have felt its superficiality.<br /><br />Regardless of what the theories may be about manuscript delivery, the fact remains that it does not work out with efficiency. Avoid it whenever at all possible.Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15924201086701834480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115937572429032619.post-56442868927881459342009-11-11T07:43:00.000-08:002009-11-11T07:46:37.189-08:00Purity of Style<i>The following is from "How to Speak and Write Correctly", by Joseph Devlin, 1910. It applies to writing style, but there is some usefulness here in terms of speaking style as well.</i><br /><br />Purity of style consists in using words which are reputable, national and present, which means that the words are in current use by the best authorities, that they are used throughout the nation and not confined to one particular part, and that they are words in constant use at the present time.<br /><br />There are two guiding principles in the choice of words,—good use and good taste. Good use tells us whether a word is right or wrong; good taste, whether it is adapted to our purpose or not.<br /><br />A word that is obsolete or too new to have gained a place in the language, or that is a provincialism, should not be used.<br /><br />Here are the Ten Commandments of English style:<br /><br /> 1. Do not use foreign words.<br /> 2. Do not use a long word when a short one will serve your purpose. Fire is much better than conflagration.<br /> 3. Do not use technical words, or those understood only by specialists in their respective lines, except when you are writing especially for such people.<br /> 4. Do not use slang.<br /> 5. Do not use provincialisms, as "I guess" for "I think"; "I reckon" for "I know," etc.<br /> 6. Do not in writing prose, use poetical or antiquated words: as "lore, e'er, morn, yea, nay, verily, peradventure."<br /> 7. Do not use trite and hackneyed words and expressions; as, "on the job," "up and in"; "down and out."<br /> 8. Do not use newspaper words which have not established a place in the language as "to bugle"; "to suicide," etc.<br /> 9. Do not use ungrammatical words and forms; as, "I ain't;" "he don't."<br /> 10. Do not use ambiguous words or phrases; as—"He showed me all about the house."<br /><br />Trite words, similes and metaphors which have become hackneyed and worn out should be allowed to rest in the oblivion of past usage. Such expressions and phrases as "Sweet sixteen" "the Almighty dollar," "Uncle Sam," "On the fence," "The Glorious Fourth," "Young America," "The lords of creation," "The rising generation," "The weaker sex," "The weaker vessel," "Sweetness long drawn out" and "chief cook and bottle washer," should be put on the shelf as they are utterly worn out from too much usage.<br /><br />Some of the old similes which have outlived their usefulness and should be pensioned off, are "Sweet as sugar," "Bold as a lion," "Strong as an ox," "Quick as a flash," "Cold as ice," "Stiff as a poker," "White as snow," "Busy as a bee," "Pale as a ghost," "Rich as Croesus," "Cross as a bear" and a great many more far too numerous to mention.<br /><br />Be as original as possible in the use of expression. Don't follow in the old rut but try and strike out for yourself. This does not mean that you should try to set the style, or do anything outlandish or out of the way, or be an innovator on the prevailing custom. In order to be original there is no necessity for you to introduce something novel or establish a precedent. The probability is you are not fit to do either, by education or talent. While following the style of those who are acknowledged leaders you can be original in your language. Try and clothe an idea different from what it has been clothed and better. If you are speaking or writing of dancing don't talk or write about "tripping the light fantastic toe." It is over two hundred years since Milton expressed it that way in "L'Allegro." You're not a Milton and besides over a million have stolen it from Milton until it is now no longer worth stealing.<br /><br />Don't resurrect obsolete words such as whilom, yclept, wis, etc., and be careful in regard to obsolescent words, that is, words that are at the present time gradually passing from use such as quoth, trow, betwixt, amongst, froward, etc.<br /><br />And beware of new words. Be original in the construction and arrangement of your language, but don't try to originate words. Leave that to the Masters of language, and don't be the first to try such words, wait until the chemists of speech have tested them and passed upon their merits.<br /><br />Quintilian said—"Prefer the oldest of the new and the newest of the old." Pope put this in rhyme and it still holds good:<br /><br />In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold, Alike fantastic, if too new or old: Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15924201086701834480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115937572429032619.post-71218156840682940502009-09-25T19:15:00.000-07:002009-09-25T19:16:21.768-07:00Good DictionDiction is that property of style which has reference to the words and phrases used in speaking and writing. The secret of literary skill from any standpoint consists in putting the right word in the right place. In order to do this it is imperative to know the meaning of the words we use, their exact literal meaning. Many synonymous words are seemingly interchangeable and appear as if the same meaning were applicable to three or four of them at the same time, but when all such words are reduced to a final analysis it is clearly seen that there is a marked difference in their meaning. For instance grief and sorrow seem to be identical, but they are not. Grief is active, sorrow is more or less passive; grief is caused by troubles and misfortunes which come to us from the outside, while sorrow is often the consequence of our own acts. Grief is frequently loud and violent, sorrow is always quiet and retiring. Grief shouts, Sorrow remains calm.<br /><br />If you are not sure of the exact meaning of a word look it up immediately in the dictionary. Sometimes some of our great scholars are puzzled over simple words in regard to meaning, spelling or pronunciation. Whenever you meet a strange word note it down until you discover its meaning and use. Read the best books you can get, books written by men and women who are acknowledged masters of language, and study how they use their words, where they place them in the sentences, and the meanings they convey to the readers.<br /><br />Mix in good society. Listen attentively to good talkers and try to imitate their manner of expression. If a word is used you do not understand, don't be ashamed to ask its meaning.<br /><br />True, a small vocabulary will carry you through, but it is an advantage to have a large one. When you live alone a little pot serves just as well as a large one to cook your victuals and it is handy and convenient, but when your friends or neighbors come to dine with you, you will need a much larger pot and it is better to have it in store, so that you will not be put to shame for your scantiness of furnishings.<br /><br />Get as many words as you possibly can—if you don't need them now, pack them away in the garrets of your brain so that you can call upon them if you require them.<br /><br />Keep a note book, jot down the words you don't understand or clearly understand and consult the dictionary when you get time.Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15924201086701834480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115937572429032619.post-80678396441193063292009-09-10T11:14:00.000-07:002009-09-10T11:15:04.945-07:00Pause and AttentionHerbert Spencer said that all the universe is in motion. So it is—and all perfect motion is rhythm. Part of rhythm is rest. Rest follows activity all through nature. Instances: day and night; spring—summer—autumn—winter; a period of rest between breaths; an instant of complete rest between heart beats. Pause, and give the attention-powers of your audience a rest. What you say after such a silence will then have a great deal more effect.<br /><br />When your country cousins come to town, the noise of a passing car will awaken them, though it seldom affects a seasoned city dweller. By the continual passing of cars his attention-power has become deadened. In one who visits the city but seldom, attention-value is insistent. To him the noise comes after a long pause; hence its power. To you, dweller in the city, there is no pause; hence the low attention-value. After riding on a train several hours you will become so accustomed to its roar that it will lose its attention-value, unless the train should stop for a while and start again. If you attempt to listen to a clock-tick that is so far away that you can barely hear it, you will find that at times you are unable to distinguish it, but in a few moments the sound becomes distinct again. Your mind will pause for rest whether you desire it to do so or not.<br /><br />The attention of your audience will act in quite the same way. Recognize this law and prepare for it—by pausing. Let it be repeated: the thought that follows a pause is much more dynamic than if no pause had occurred. What is said to you of a night will not have the same effect on your mind as if it had been uttered in the morning when your attention had been lately refreshed by the pause of sleep. We are told on the first page of the Bible that even the Creative Energy of God rested on the "seventh day." You may be sure, then, that the frail finite mind of your audience will likewise demand rest. Observe nature, study her laws, and obey them in your speaking.Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15924201086701834480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115937572429032619.post-61843343754226508802009-08-24T07:59:00.000-07:002009-09-25T19:21:14.307-07:00Public Speaking: Relaxing the VoiceSignor Bonci of the Metropolitan Opera Company says that the secret of good voice is relaxation; and this is true, for relaxation is the basis of ease. The air waves that produce voice result in a different kind of tone when striking against relaxed muscles than when striking constricted muscles. Try this for yourself. Contract the muscles of your face and throat as you do in hate, and flame out "I hate you!" Now relax as you do when thinking gentle, tender thoughts, and say, "I love you." How different the voice sounds.<br /><br />In practising voice exercises, and in speaking, never force your tones. Ease must be your watchword. The voice is a delicate instrument, and you must not handle it with hammer and tongs. Don't make your voice go—let it go. Don't work. Let the yoke of speech be easy and its burden light.<br /><br />Your throat should be free from strain during speech, therefore it is necessary to avoid muscular contraction. The throat must act as a sort of chimney or funnel for the voice, hence any unnatural constriction will not only harm its tones but injure its health.<br /><br />Nervousness and mental strain are common sources of mouth and throat constriction, so make the battle for poise and self-confidence for which we pleaded in the opening chapter.<br /><br />But how can I relax? you ask. By simply willing to relax. Hold your arm out straight from your shoulder. Now—withdraw all power and let it fall. Practise relaxation of the muscles of the throat by letting your neck and head fall forward. Roll the upper part of your body around, with the waist line acting as a pivot. Let your head fall and roll around as you shift the torso to different positions. Do not force your head around—simply relax your neck and let gravity pull it around as your body moves.<br /><br />Again, let your head fall forward on your breast; raise your head, letting your jaw hang. Relax until your jaw feels heavy, as though it were a weight hung to your face. Remember, you must relax the jaw to obtain command of it. It must be free and flexible for the moulding of tone, and to let the tone pass out unobstructed.<br /><br />The lips also must be made flexible, to aid in the moulding of clear and beautiful tones. For flexibility of lips repeat the syllables, mo—me. In saying mo, bring the lips up to resemble the shape of the letter O. In repeating me draw them back as you do in a grin. Repeat this exercise rapidly, giving the lips as much exercise as possible.<br /><br />Try the following exercise in the same manner:<br /><br />Mo—E—O—E—OO—Ah.<br /><br />After this exercise has been mastered, the following will also be found excellent for flexibility of lips:<br /><br />Memorize these sounds indicated (not the expressions) so that you can repeat them rapidly.<br /><br /><pre><br />A as in May. E as in Met. U as in Use.<br />A " Ah. I " Ice. Oi " Oil.<br />A " At. I " It. u " Our.<br />O " No. O " No. O " Ooze.<br />A " All. OO " Foot. A " Ah.<br />E " Eat. OO " Ooze. E " Eat.<br /></pre><br />All the activity of breathing must be centered, not in the throat, but in the middle of the body—you must breathe from the diaphragm. Note the way you breathe when lying flat on the back, undressed in bed. You will observe that all the activity then centers around the diaphragm. This is the natural and correct method of breathing. By constant watchfulness make this your habitual manner, for it will enable you to relax more perfectly the muscles of the throat.Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15924201086701834480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115937572429032619.post-26085066794553198302009-08-20T05:51:00.000-07:002009-08-20T05:52:16.274-07:00After Preparing for Success, Expect ItLet your bearing be modestly confident, but most of all be modestly confident within. Over-confidence is bad, but to tolerate premonitions of failure is worse, for a bold man may win attention by his very bearing, while a rabbit-hearted coward invites disaster.<br /><br />Humility is not the personal discount that we must offer in the presence of others—against this old interpretation there has been a most healthy modern reaction. True humility any man who thoroughly knows himself must feel; but it is not a humility that assumes a worm-like meekness; it is rather a strong, vibrant prayer for greater power for service—a prayer that Uriah Heep could never have uttered.<br /><br />Washington Irving once introduced Charles Dickens at a dinner given in the latter's honor. In the middle of his speech Irving hesitated, became embarrassed, and sat down awkwardly. Turning to a friend beside him he remarked, "There, I told you I would fail, and I did."<br /><br />If you believe you will fail, there is no hope for you. You will.<br /><br />Rid yourself of this I-am-a-poor-worm-in-the-dust idea. You are a god, with infinite capabilities. "All things are ready if the mind be so." The eagle looks the cloudless sun in the face.Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15924201086701834480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115937572429032619.post-66588920940937168052009-08-17T17:43:00.001-07:002009-08-17T17:43:34.583-07:00Be Absorbed by Your SubjectApply the blacksmith's homely principle when you are speaking. If you feel deeply about your subject you will be able to think of little else. Concentration is a process of distraction from less important matters. It is too late to think about the cut of your coat when once you are upon the platform, so centre your interest on what you are about to say—fill your mind with your speech-material and, like the infilling water in the glass, it will drive out your unsubstantial fears.<br /><br />Self-consciousness is undue consciousness of self, and, for the purpose of delivery, self is secondary to your subject, not only in the opinion of the audience, but, if you are wise, in your own. To hold any other view is to regard yourself as an exhibit instead of as a messenger with a message worth delivering. Do you remember Elbert Hubbard's tremendous little tract, "A Message to Garcia"? The youth subordinated himself to the message he bore. So must you, by all the determination you can muster. It is sheer egotism to fill your mind with thoughts of self when a greater thing is there—TRUTH. Say this to yourself sternly, and shame your self-consciousness into quiescence. If the theater caught fire you could rush to the stage and shout directions to the audience without any self-consciousness, for the importance of what you were saying would drive all fear-thoughts out of your mind.<br /><br />Far worse than self-consciousness through fear of doing poorly is self-consciousness through assumption of doing well. The first sign of greatness is when a man does not attempt to look and act great. Before you can call yourself a man at all, Kipling assures us, you must "not look too good nor talk too wise."<br /><br />Nothing advertises itself so thoroughly as conceit. One may be so full of self as to be empty. Voltaire said, "We must conceal self-love." But that can not be done. You know this to be true, for you have recognized overweening self-love in others. If you have it, others are seeing it in you. There are things in this world bigger than self, and in working for them self will be forgotten, or—what is better—remembered only so as to help us win toward higher things.Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15924201086701834480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115937572429032619.post-47642209057487898762009-08-10T18:16:00.000-07:002009-08-10T18:17:25.295-07:00Pause Before Delivering the Final VolleyIt is often dangerous to rush into battle without pausing for preparation or waiting for recruits. Consider Custer's massacre as an instance.<br /><br />You can light a match by holding it beneath a lens and concentrating the sun's rays. You would not expect the match to flame if you jerked the lens back and forth quickly. Pause, and the lens gathers the heat. Your thoughts will not set fire to the minds of your hearers unless you pause to gather the force that comes by a second or two of concentration. Maple trees and gas wells are rarely tapped continually; when a stronger flow is wanted, a pause is made, nature has time to gather her reserve forces, and when the tree or the well is reopened, a stronger flow is the result.<br /><br />Use the same common sense with your mind. If you would make a thought particularly effective, pause just before its utterance, concentrate your mind-energies, and then give it expression with renewed vigor. Carlyle was right: "Speak not, I passionately entreat thee, till thy thought has silently matured itself. Out of silence comes thy strength. Speech is silvern, Silence is golden; Speech is human, Silence is divine."<br /><br />Silence has been called the father of speech. It should be. Too many of our public speeches have no fathers. They ramble along without pause or break. Like Tennyson's brook, they run on forever. Listen to little children, the policeman on the corner, the family conversation around the table, and see how many pauses they naturally use, for they are unconscious of effects. When we get before an audience, we throw most of our natural methods of expression to the wind, and strive after artificial effects. Get back to the methods of nature—and pause.Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15924201086701834480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7115937572429032619.post-66703716921112455162009-08-07T15:09:00.000-07:002009-08-07T15:10:09.669-07:00GestureGesture is really a simple matter that requires observation and common sense rather than a book of rules. Gesture is an outward expression of an inward condition. It is merely an effect—the effect of a mental or an emotional impulse struggling for expression through physical avenues.<br /><br />You must not, however, begin at the wrong end: if you are troubled by your gestures, or a lack of gestures, attend to the cause, not the effect. It will not in the least help matters to tack on to your delivery a few mechanical movements. If the tree in your front yard is not growing to suit you, fertilize and water the soil and let the tree have sunshine. Obviously it will not help your tree to nail on a few branches. If your cistern is dry, wait until it rains; or bore a well. Why plunge a pump into a dry hole?<br /><br />The speaker whose thoughts and emotions are welling within him like a mountain spring will not have much trouble to make gestures; it will be merely a question of properly directing them. If his enthusiasm for his subject is not such as to give him a natural impulse for dramatic action, it will avail nothing to furnish him with a long list of rules. He may tack on some movements, but they will look like the wilted branches nailed to a tree to simulate life. Gestures must be born, not built. A wooden horse may amuse the children, but it takes a live one to go somewhere.Greghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15924201086701834480noreply@blogger.com0